Bentley Drummle in Great Expectations NEXT Character Analysis Bentley Drummle is Pip's lifelong nemesis. He's mean, haughty, and abrasive. Oh, and did we mention, rich? Jaggers actually likes Drummle (well, he is a shady lawyer), but tells Pip to stay away from him. Drummle eventually marries Estella, to Pip's great anguish, and he becomes an abusive husband. He dies while mistreating a horse, and we're only a little sorry. SparkNotes: Great Expectations: Character List Great Expectations Plot Overview Analysis of Major Characters Pip - The protagonist and narrator of Great Expectations, Pip begins the story as a young orphan boy being raised by his sister and brother-in-law in the marsh country of Kent, in the southeast of England. Pip is passionate, romantic, and somewhat unrealistic at heart, and he tends to expect more for himself than is reasonable. Pip also has a powerful conscience, and he deeply wants to improve himself, both morally and socially. Read an in-depth analysis of Pip. Estella - Miss Havisham’s beautiful young ward, Estella is Pip’s unattainable dream throughout the novel.

He loves her passionately, but, though she sometimes seems to consider him a friend, she is usually cold, cruel, and uninterested in him. As they grow up together, she repeatedly warns him that she has no heart. Read an in-depth analysis of Estella. Miss Havisham - Miss Havisham is the wealthy, eccentric old woman who lives in a manor called Satis House near Pip’s village. She is manic and often seems insane, flitting around her house in a faded wedding dress, keeping a decaying feast on her table, and surrounding herself with clocks stopped at twenty minutes to nine. As a young woman, Miss Havisham was jilted by her fiancé minutes before her wedding, and now she has a vendetta against all men. She deliberately raises Estella to be the tool of her revenge, training her beautiful ward to break men’s hearts. Read an in-depth analysis of Miss Havisham. Abel Magwitch (“The Convict”) - A fearsome criminal, Magwitch escapes from prison at the beginning of Great Expectations and terrorizes Pip in the cemetery.

Pip’s kindness, however, makes a deep impression on him, and he subsequently devotes himself to making a fortune and using it to elevate Pip into a higher social class. Behind the scenes, he becomes Pip’s secret benefactor, funding Pip’s education and opulent lifestyle in London through the lawyer Jaggers. Joe Gargery - Pip’s brother-in-law, the village blacksmith, Joe stays with his overbearing, abusive wife—known as Mrs. Joe—solely out of love for Pip. Joe’s quiet goodness makes him one of the few completely sympathetic characters in Great Expectations. Although he is uneducated and unrefined, he consistently acts for the benefit of those he loves and suffers in silence when Pip treats him coldly. Jaggers - The powerful, foreboding lawyer hired by Magwitch to supervise Pip’s elevation to the upper class. As one of the most important criminal lawyers in London, Jaggers is privy to some dirty business; he consorts with vicious criminals, and even they are terrified of him. But there is more to Jaggers than his impenetrable exterior. He often seems to care for Pip, and before the novel begins he helps Miss Havisham to adopt the orphaned Estella.

Jaggers smells strongly of soap: he washes his hands obsessively as a psychological mech-anism to keep the criminal taint from corrupting him. Herbert Pocket - Pip first meets Herbert Pocket in the garden of Satis House, when, as a pale young gentleman, Herbert challenges him to a fight. Years later, they meet again in London, and Herbert becomes Pip’s best friend and key companion after Pip’s elevation to the status of gentleman. Herbert nicknames Pip “Handel.” He is the son of Matthew Pocket, Miss Havisham’s cousin, and hopes to become a merchant so that he can afford to marry Clara Barley. Wemmick - Jaggers’s clerk and Pip’s friend, Wemmick is one of the strangest characters in Great Expectations. At work, he is hard, cynical, sarcastic, and obsessed with “portable property”; at home in Walworth, he is jovial, wry, and a tender caretaker of his “Aged Parent.” Biddy - A simple, kindhearted country girl, Biddy first befriends Pip when they attend school together. After Mrs. Joe is attacked and becomes an invalid, Biddy moves into Pip’s home to care for her.

Throughout most of the novel, Biddy represents the opposite of Estella; she is plain, kind, moral, and of Pip’s own social class. Dolge Orlick - The day laborer in Joe’s forge, Orlick is a slouching, oafish embodiment of evil. He is malicious and shrewd, hurting people simply because he enjoys it. He is responsible for the attack on Mrs. Joe, and he later almost succeeds in his attempt to murder Pip. Mrs. Joe - Pip’s sister and Joe’s wife, known only as “Mrs. Joe” throughout the novel. Mrs. Joe is a stern and overbearing figure to both Pip and Joe. She keeps a spotless household and frequently menaces her husband and her brother with her cane, which she calls “Tickler.” She also forces them to drink a foul-tasting concoction called tar-water. Mrs. Joe is petty and ambitious; her fondest wish is to be something more than what she is, the wife of the village blacksmith. Uncle Pumblechook - Pip’s pompous, arrogant uncle.

(He is actually Joe’s uncle and, therefore, Pip’s “uncle-in-law,” but Pip and his sister both call him “Uncle Pumblechook.”) A merchant obsessed with money, Pumblechook is responsible for arranging Pip’s first meeting with Miss Havisham. Throughout the rest of the novel, he will shamelessly take credit for Pip’s rise in social status, even though he has nothing to do with it, since Magwitch, not Miss Havisham, is Pip’s secret benefactor. Compeyson - A criminal and the former partner of Magwitch, Compeyson is an educated, gentlemanly outlaw who contrasts sharply with the coarse and uneducated Magwitch. Compeyson is responsible for Magwitch’s capture at the end of the novel. He is also the man who jilted Miss Havisham on her wedding day. Bentley Drummle - An oafish, unpleasant young man who attends tutoring sessions with Pip at the Pockets’ house, Drummle is a minor member of the nobility, and the sense of superiority this gives him makes him feel justified in acting cruelly and harshly toward everyone around him.

Drummle eventually marries Estella, to Pip’s chagrin; she is miserable in their marriage and reunites with Pip after Drummle dies some eleven years later. Molly - Jaggers’s housekeeper. In Chapter 48, Pip realizes that she is Estella’s mother. Mr. Wopsle - The church clerk in Pip’s country town; Mr. Wopsle’s aunt is the local schoolteacher. Sometime after Pip becomes a gentleman, Mr. Wopsle moves to London and becomes an actor. Startop - A friend of Pip’s and Herbert’s. Startop is a delicate young man who, with Pip and Drummle, takes tutelage with Matthew Pocket. Later, Startop helps Pip and Herbert with Magwitch’s escape. Miss Skiffins - Wemmick’s beloved, and eventual wife. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Search eText, Read Online, Study, Discuss. Estella's Feelings for Pip Hi! I'm writing an essay on Estella's character development, and I want to know what other people think about an interaction between Estella and Pip.

Towards the end of Chapter 44 (XLIV), Pip and Estella share the following exchange: I know,ï¿½ said I, in answer to that action; ï¿½I know. I have no hope that I shall ever call you mine, Estella. I am ignorant what may become of me very soon, how poor I may be, or where I may go. Still, I love you. I have loved you ever since I first saw you in this house.ï¿½ Looking at me perfectly unmoved and with her fingers busy, she shook her head again. ï¿½It would have been cruel in Miss Havisham, horribly cruel, to practise on the susceptibility of a poor boy, and to torture me through all these years with a vain hope and an idle pursuit, if she had reflected on the gravity of what she did. But I think she did not. I think that in the endurance of her own trial, she forgot mine, Estella.ï¿½ I saw Miss Havisham put her hand to her heart and hold it there, as she sat looking by turns at Estella and at me.

ï¿½It seems,ï¿½ said Estella, very calmly, ï¿½that there are sentiments, fanciesï¿½I donï¿½t know how to call themï¿½which I am not able to comprehend. When you say you love me, I know what you mean, as a form of words; but nothing more. You address nothing in my breast, you touch nothing there. I donï¿½t care for what you say at all. I have tried to warn you of this; now, have I not?ï¿½ I said in a miserable manner, ï¿½Yes.ï¿½ ï¿½Yes. But you would not be warned, for you thought I did not mean it. Now, did you not think so?ï¿½ ï¿½I thought and hoped you could not mean it. You, so young, untried, and beautiful, Estella! Surely it is not in Nature.ï¿½ ï¿½It is in my nature,ï¿½ she returned. And then she added, with a stress upon the words, ï¿½It is in the nature formed within me.

I make a great difference between you and all other people when I say so much. I can do no more.ï¿½ ... ï¿½On whom should I fling myself away?ï¿½ she retorted, with a smile. ï¿½Should I fling myself away upon the man who would the soonest feel (if people do feel such things) that I took nothing to him? There! It is done. I shall do well enough, and so will my husband. As to leading me into what you call this fatal step, Miss Havisham would have had me wait, and not marry yet; but I am tired of the life I have led, which has very few charms for me, and I am willing enough to change it. Say no more. We shall never understand each other.ï¿½ ï¿½Such a mean brute, such a stupid brute!ï¿½ I urged in despair. ï¿½Donï¿½t be afraid of my being a blessing to him,ï¿½ said Estella; ï¿½I shall not be that. Come! Here is my hand.

Do we part on this, you visionary boyï¿½or man?ï¿½ ï¿½O Estella!ï¿½ I answered, as my bitter tears fell fast on her hand, do what I would to restrain them; ï¿½even if I remained in England and could hold my head up with the rest, how could I see you Drummleï¿½s wife?ï¿½ ï¿½Nonsense,ï¿½ she returned, ï¿½nonsense. This will pass in no time.ï¿½ ï¿½Never, Estella!ï¿½ ï¿½You will get me out of your thoughts in a week.ï¿½ I know Estella is a cold character and doesn't love Pip, but does this passage show she cares for him? Particularly in "'Nonsense,' she returned... in a week'", I think she does feel a little bad for Pip, and is almost trying to convince herself that Pip doesn't love her. Even more so in when she gives him her hand, Estella acts like she does care for Pip, just not romantically.

I'm not entirely sure if that's what Dickens intended for the takeaway to be, though, so I'd like to know what anyone else thinks! Also excuse my possibly confusing sentence structure; I'm writing an essay, and my brain is fried. Thank you!! Posted By hamleit at Sun 1 May 2016, 7:09 PM in Great Expectations || 1 Reply A bit of confusion I've just started reading Great Expectations, and so far am enjoying it. However, there is a particular sentence I'm having a terrible amount of trouble deciphering. Here's the particular passage, with the particular offending part underlined: "There was a fiction that Mr. Wopsle "examined" the scholars once a quarter. What he did on those occasions was to turn up his cuffs, stick up his hair, and give us Mark Antony's oration over the body of Caesar. This was always followed by Collins's Ode on the Passions, wherein I particularly venerated Mr. Wopsle as Fear, whistling to keep his courage up.

It was not with me then, as it was in later life, when I fell into the society of the Passions, and compared them with Collins and Wopsle, rather to the disadvantage of both gentlemen." What exactly was not "with him"? Posted By Murderous Moose at Thu 11 Feb 2016, 7:05 AM in Great Expectations || 3 Replies Finished reading it Hello everyone! 5 days ago I finished reading 'Great Expectations'. It was excellent. I liked the plot, the way it is written, the descriptions of the characters; in a word, I liked everything about it. One of the characters I really liked was Herbert. I liked it when he called Pip 'Handel,' besides he was very kind-hearted. What do you think of him? Do you like him? Posted By Carmilla at Thu 17 Dec 2015, 1:15 PM in Great Expectations || 10 Replies Hello everyone!! I'm reading 'Great Expectations', and I found the word 'warmint'. I was wondering if you could help me with its meaning. Does it mean 'varmint'? Help, please!

:) Posted By Carmilla at Wed 18 Nov 2015, 3:33 PM in Great Expectations || 6 Replies I was just wondering in what ways has Miss Havisham deceived herself about how she has chosen to live her life? Posted By jepense at Sun 12 Jul 2015, 10:06 PM in Great Expectations || 5 Replies An article into which Joe's destiny led him. In the following sentence in chapter 4 of Great Expectations, Dickens wrote : "Mrs. Joe was prodigiously busy in getting the house ready for the festivities of the day, and Joe had been put upon the kitchen door-step to keep him out of the dust-panï¿½an article into which his destiny always led him, sooner or later, when my sister was vigorously reaping the floors of her establishment." Please explain what Dickens implied when he said the dust-pan was an article into which Joe's destiny always led him. Posted By noumenon52 at Mon 29 Jul 2013, 4:06 PM in Great Expectations || 3 Replies Some explanations needed.

In chapter 3 of Great Expectations, when Pip wondered that the convict didn't hear the cannon the previous night. The convict said: ï¿½Why, see now!ï¿½ said he. ï¿½When a man's alone on these flats, with a light head and a light stomach, perishing of cold and want, he hears nothin' all night, but guns firing, and voices calling. Hears? He sees the soldiers, with their red coats lighted up by the torches carried afore, closing in round him. Hears his number called, hears himself challenged, hears the rattle of the muskets, hears the orders ï¿½Make ready! Present! Cover him steady, men!ï¿½ and is laid hands onï¿½and there's nothin'! Why, if I see one pursuing party last nightï¿½coming up in order, Damn 'em, with their tramp, trampï¿½I see a hundred. And as to firing!

Why, I see the mist shake with the cannon, arter it was broad dayï¿½But this man;ï¿½ he had said all the rest as if he had forgotten my being there; ï¿½did you notice anything in him?ï¿½ I don't quite understand what the convict tried to tell Pip. Did he just imagine what another convict might have heard and seen? Did he himself see the pursuing soldiers and hear the cannon? What did he mean when he said ".. and is laid hands onï¿½and there's nothin'! Why, if I see one pursuing party last nightï¿½coming up in order, Damn 'em, with their tramp, trampï¿½I see a hundred. And as to firing! Why, I see the mist shake with the cannon, arter it was broad day---" ? Please explain.

Posted By noumenon52 at Sat 27 Jul 2013, 3:51 AM in Great Expectations || 2 Replies New perspective on Great Expectations In 1858 Dickens wrote six letters (five unpublished) to Patrick-Allan Fraser of Arbroath who wished to gift Hawkesbury Hall near Coventry to Dickens' Guild of Literature and Art. As writer-in-residence at Hospitalfield, I've just read the letters and have reflected on how Pip's Great Expectations may have been inspired (in part) by the author's, as the book was conceived around this time, though not written until 'All the Year Round' needed an injection of quality writing in 1860/61. Anyway, to read more about the research, the link is patisback.co.uk though you'll have to add the w bits as well. Let me know if it's of interest! Duncan McLaren Posted By duncanmclaren at Sat 6 Jul 2013, 6:14 PM in Great Expectations || 0 Replies Do character ages and timelines match? Do the ages and timelines of the characters in this book add up?

In the first chapter, Pip seems about eight years old. Then, according to the book, he first visits Miss Havisham a year later. Here he meets Estella, who Pip thinks is about his own age, although she seems older. The way she talks about the brewery and what 'satis' means makes her sound older than nine. Pip seems somewhat older too. For example, he uses the word melancholy instead of sad. I would say they were both at least eleven. In most films and TV series, the young Estella looks about thirteen. Reading the book I imagined her being prepubescent, although Pip does say that one of the reasons she appeared older was that she was a girl. I am sure the book says he only visited the house for about ten months before he was apprenticed to Joe. Apprenticeships usually started at about age fourteen, so some more years seem to have disappeared from Pip's childhood. Pip learns of his Great Expectations four years later, when he would be eighteen. This just about gives Magwitch time to be transported to Australia, serve his seven years forced labour and to start making lots of money. I also wondered about the ages of the older characters.

Magwitch was described as about sixty when he comes back to see Pip, and he is still quite an active man. That makes him about forty-five when he first terrorises Pip in the graveyard, which is plausible. He would have been thirty-seven when he fathered Estella with Molly, which is plausible too. I am pretty sure he said Compeyson was described as being a younger man than Magwitch. Compeyson was supposed to marry Miss Havisham, so presumably they are about the same age. If anything, Miss Havisham would probably be a bit younger. If Compeyson is five years younger than Magwitch, and Miss Havisham is one year younger than Compeyson, that makes her fifty-four when things come to a head, and only thirty-nine when she first meets Pip. That seems far too young. When Pip first meets her, she already seems like an old crone; she leans on his shoulder to exercise around her dining room. However, she does not seem to have aged any fifteen years later. In addition, Herbert tells Pip that Compeyson jilted Miss Havisham twenty-five years before they were born, which would make that forty-three years previously.

If Miss Havisham was twenty when she was jilted, that would make her between fifty-three and fifty-six when she first met Pip, and sixty-eight when she died. Jaggers usually appears quite old in the TV and film adaptions, but his defence of Molly was the case that made his name as a lawyer. Say he was twenty-five at the time. That would make him forty when he meets Pip in the Jolly Bargemen and forty-five when everything goes badly wrong. Posted By kev67 at Sun 20 May 2012, 3:18 PM in Great Expectations || 2 Replies Physical abuse Do you think there is a disturbing message in GE that domestic abuse made Estella a better person? Evidently, Estella was damaged by Miss Havisham, but that was by psychological abuse, not physical. Miss Havisham would never allow anyone else to chastise Estella; hence her impertinence to adults like Mr Pumblechook and Miss Camilla. Pip's male role model as a child was Joe. Joe never retaliates against his wife's beatings.Therefore Pip learns not retaliate when he is abused, either by his sister or Estella.

Pip does not believe even Bentley Drummle would be scoundrel enough to beat his wife, when Jaggers suggests it. Evidently, Estella's experience of Pip was not good preparation for a life with Drummle. In the last chapter, Estella says she has been bent and broken, but hopefully into better shape. That is not a very edifying message. Posted By kev67 at Mon 14 May 2012, 10:28 PM in Great Expectations || 0 Replies The characters Miss Havisham, Bentley Drummle and Joe Gargery in Great Expectations. - GCSE English - Marked by Teachers.com The characters Miss Havisham, Bentley Drummle and Joe Gargery in Great Expectations. Extracts from this document... Introduction The characters Miss Havisham, Bentley Drummle and Joe Gargery in Great Expectations Miss Havisham is a wealthy lady whose success came from the brewery attached to Satis House. The house itself is in decay, since the day Miss Havisham was forsaken on her wedding day, by Compeyson, a man who only used her for her wealth.

The fact that she was able to "stop time" in the manor is a sign of her fortune. She is able to afford to keep the house the same as it was. Miss Havisham is from the upper-class, though she was not born into aristocracy. Her decaying house perhaps mirrors her own gradual destruction. After being jilted, Miss Havisham sought to wreak revenge upon all men by adopting and using Estella as a tool. She raised Estella out of her own selfish desires to hurt the men who fall in love with her beauty. She encourages Estella to "break men's hearts" and Pip was just someone for Estella to practise on. ...read more. Middle Though he is a minor character in the novel, Drummle represents a key factor - class distinction. He is a "gentleman" by wealth, but not by nature. Drummle wants to marry Estella for her beauty and riches, which is to say that he is a very shallow man. He does not truly love Estella, and the marriage is not a happy one, as he mistreats her and they are miserable.

The marriage fails in the end, due to Estella's mission to break men's hearts and because Drummle found out whose Estella's real parents were - a convict and a murderess. After discovering this, Drummle abandons Estella because of his shallowness, and does not want others to know of his association to a criminal class. In the end, he dies in a riding accident because he mistreated a horse. I think that Dickens had a negative view of money and those with status. Almost all the characters with wealth and social status in this novel end up destroyed. ...read more. Conclusion Pip falls ill after Magwitch's death and Joe, who has never stopped caring for Pip, brings him back to the marshes to care for him. We can see Joe has high morals and this can be linked to Eva Smith from "An Inspector Calls" - J.B Priestley, who was, like Joe, one of the working-class but with clearer morals than those belonging to others of higher-class. Pip narrates this story and shows Joe in a favourable light, as if he were confessing his treatment towards Joe.

Pip realises now that Joe had always been there and had always loved him and by writing Joe in such a positive way, he is trying to admit and atone for his mistakes. I think this is an important aspect in life to recognise and to act upon, even today. People should not be judged on their class, money or even looks but on criteria other than these attributes. A person's true self is only expressed through their compassion and personality, and Pip realises this through Magwitch and Joe. ...read more. The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Great Expectations section. Found what you're looking for? Start learning 29% faster today 150,000+ documents available An Overview of the Character Estella Havisham in the Novel Great Expectation by Charles Dickens | Kibin An Overview of the Character Estella Havisham in the Novel Great Expectation by Charles Dickens Sign Up & Access Essays Already a member? Login here Pages: 18 This preview is partially blurred. Sign up to view the full document. Sign Up & Access Essays Already a member?

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Sign up to view the full document End of preview Upgrade to view the full document Estella Havisham Most readers are appalled at the cold-hearted and cruelways of Estella but any criticism directed at her is largely undeserved Shewas simply raised in a controlled environment where she was in essencebrainwashed by Miss Havisham Nonetheless her demeanor might lead oneto suspect that she was a girl with a heart of ice Estella is scornful from themoment she is introduced when she remarks on Pips coarse hands and thickboots However her beauty soon captivates Pip and she is instilled as thefocal point of his thoughts for much of the remainder of the novel The factthat Pip becomes infatuated with her is also not Estellas fault By no means isthere any evidence that she loved him She does not flirt with him in any wayRather she tortures Pip with her cruel treatment Despite her abhorrentquality Estella is extremely candid because she seems to have no need foraffection she is able to tell things as she sees them without a thought of whatsomeone else may think This is in contrast to Pips obsession of his everyaction being approved by Miss Havisham and Estella Estella is also quiteintelligent She is very aware

 of the manner in which Miss Havisham raisedher She tells Miss Havisham I am what you have made me Take all thepraise take all the blame take all the success take all the failure in shorttake me Chapter 38 Finally by the end of the novel Estella has changedThrough her marriage with Bentley Drummle she has suffered to learn somevaluable life lessons that have transformed her character Pip remarks on thestark reversal of the once hard Estella what I had never seen before wasthe saddened softened light of the once proud eyes what I had never feltbefore was the friendly touch of the once insensible hand Chapter 59 JoeGargery Joe is the only one of Dickens characters who stands opposed toand apart from the main current of action He stays away from London forthe @Kibin is a lifesaver for my essay right now!!

- Sandra Slivka, student @ UC Berkeley Wow, this is the best essay help I've ever received! - Camvu Pham, student @ U of M If I'd known about @Kibin in college, I would have gotten much more sleep - Jen Soust, alumni @ UCLA SparkNotes: Great Expectations: Themes, Motifs & Symbols Themes, Motifs & Symbols Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. Ambition and Self-Improvement The moral theme of Great Expectations is quite simple: affection, loyalty, and conscience are more important than social advancement, wealth, and class. Dickens establishes the theme and shows Pip learning this lesson, largely by exploring ideas of ambition and self-improvement—ideas that quickly become both the thematic center of the novel and the psychological mechanism that encourages much of Pip’s development. At heart, Pip is an idealist; whenever he can conceive of something that is better than what he already has, he immediately desires to obtain the improvement. When he sees Satis House, he longs to be a wealthy gentleman; when he thinks of his moral shortcomings, he longs to be good; when he realizes that he cannot read, he longs to learn how.

Pip’s desire for self-improvement is the main source of the novel’s title: because he believes in the possibility of advancement in life, he has “great expectations” about his future. Ambition and self-improvement take three forms in Great Expectations—moral, social, and educational; these motivate Pip’s best and his worst behavior throughout the novel. First, Pip desires moral self-improvement. He is extremely hard on himself when he acts immorally and feels powerful guilt that spurs him to act better in the future. When he leaves for London, for instance, he torments himself about having behaved so wretchedly toward Joe and Biddy. Second, Pip desires social self-improvement. In love with Estella, he longs to become a member of her social class, and, encouraged by Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook, he entertains fantasies of becoming a gentleman. The working out of this fantasy forms the basic plot of the novel; it provides Dickens the opportunity to gently satirize the class system of his era and to make a point about its capricious nature.

Significantly, Pip’s life as a gentleman is no more satisfying—and certainly no more moral—than his previous life as a blacksmith’s apprentice. Third, Pip desires educational improvement. This desire is deeply connected to his social ambition and longing to marry Estella: a full education is a requirement of being a gentleman. As long as he is an ignorant country boy, he has no hope of social advancement. Pip understands this fact as a child, when he learns to read at Mr. Wopsle’s aunt’s school, and as a young man, when he takes lessons from Matthew Pocket. Ultimately, through the examples of Joe, Biddy, and Magwitch, Pip learns that social and educational improvement are irrelevant to one’s real worth and that conscience and affection are to be valued above erudition and social standing. Social Class Throughout Great Expectations, Dickens explores the class system of Victorian England, ranging from the most wretched criminals (Magwitch) to the poor peasants of the marsh country (Joe and Biddy) to the middle class (Pumblechook) to the very rich (Miss Havisham).

The theme of social class is central to the novel’s plot and to the ultimate moral theme of the book—Pip’s realization that wealth and class are less important than affection, loyalty, and inner worth. Pip achieves this realization when he is finally able to understand that, despite the esteem in which he holds Estella, one’s social status is in no way connected to one’s real character. Drummle, for instance, is an upper-class lout, while Magwitch, a persecuted convict, has a deep inner worth. Perhaps the most important thing to remember about the novel’s treatment of social class is that the class system it portrays is based on the post-Industrial Revolution model of Victorian England. Dickens generally ignores the nobility and the hereditary aristocracy in favor of characters whose fortunes have been earned through commerce. Even Miss Havisham’s family fortune was made through the brewery that is still connected to her manor. In this way, by connecting the theme of social class to the idea of work and self-advancement, Dickens subtly reinforces the novel’s overarching theme of ambition and self-improvement.

Crime, Guilt, and Innocence The theme of crime, guilt, and innocence is explored throughout the novel largely through the characters of the convicts and the criminal lawyer Jaggers. From the handcuffs Joe mends at the smithy to the gallows at the prison in London, the imagery of crime and criminal justice pervades the book, becoming an important symbol of Pip’s inner struggle to reconcile his own inner moral conscience with the institutional justice system. In general, just as social class becomes a superficial standard of value that Pip must learn to look beyond in finding a better way to live his life, the external trappings of the criminal justice system (police, courts, jails, etc.) become a superficial standard of morality that Pip must learn to look beyond to trust his inner conscience. Magwitch, for instance, frightens Pip at first simply because he is a convict, and Pip feels guilty for helping him because he is afraid of the police. By the end of the book, however, Pip has discovered Magwitch’s inner nobility, and is able to disregard his external status as a criminal. Prompted by his conscience, he helps Magwitch to evade the law and the police.

As Pip has learned to trust his conscience and to value Magwitch’s inner character, he has replaced an external standard of value with an internal one. Motifs Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes. Doubles One of the most remarkable aspects of Dickens’s work is its structural intricacy and remarkable balance. Dickens’s plots involve complicated coincidences, extraordinarily tangled webs of human relationships, and highly dramatic developments in which setting, atmosphere, event, and character are all seamlessly fused. In Great Expectations, perhaps the most visible sign of Dickens’s commitment to intricate dramatic symmetry—apart from the knot of character relationships, of course—is the fascinating motif of doubles that runs throughout the book. From the earliest scenes of the novel to the last, nearly every element of Great Expectations is mirrored or doubled at some other point in the book. There are two convicts on the marsh (Magwitch and Compeyson), two invalids (Mrs. Joe and Miss Havisham), two young women who interest Pip (Biddy and Estella), and so on.

There are two secret benefactors: Magwitch, who gives Pip his fortune, and Pip, who mirrors Magwitch’s action by secretly buying Herbert’s way into the mercantile business. Finally, there are two adults who seek to mold children after their own purposes: Magwitch, who wishes to “own” a gentleman and decides to make Pip one, and Miss Havisham, who raises Estella to break men’s hearts in revenge for her own broken heart. Interestingly, both of these actions are motivated by Compeyson: Magwitch resents but is nonetheless covetous of Compeyson’s social status and education, which motivates his desire to make Pip a gentleman, and Miss Havisham’s heart was broken when Compeyson left her at the altar, which motivates her desire to achieve revenge through Estella. The relationship between Miss Havisham and Compeyson—a well-born woman and a common man—further mirrors the relationship between Estella and Pip. This doubling of elements has no real bearing on the novel’s main themes, but, like the connection of weather and action, it adds to the sense that everything in Pip’s world is connected.

Throughout Dickens’s works, this kind of dramatic symmetry is simply part of the fabric of his novelistic universe. Comparison of Characters to Inanimate Objects Throughout Great Expectations, the narrator uses images of inanimate objects to describe the physical appearance of characters—particularly minor characters, or characters with whom the narrator is not intimate. For example, Mrs. Joe looks as if she scrubs her face with a nutmeg grater, while the inscrutable features of Mr. Wemmick are repeatedly compared to a letter-box. This motif, which Dickens uses throughout his novels, may suggest a failure of empathy on the narrator’s part, or it may suggest that the character’s position in life is pressuring them to resemble a thing more than a human being. The latter interpretation would mean that the motif in general is part of a social critique, in that it implies that an institution such as the class system or the criminal justice system dehumanizes certain people. Symbols Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts. Satis House In Satis House, Dickens creates a magnificent Gothic setting whose various elements symbolize Pip’s romantic perception of the upper class and many other themes of the book.

On her decaying body, Miss Havisham’s wedding dress becomes an ironic symbol of death and degeneration. The wedding dress and the wedding feast symbolize Miss Havisham’s past, and the stopped clocks throughout the house symbolize her determined attempt to freeze time by refusing to change anything from the way it was when she was jilted on her wedding day. The brewery next to the house symbolizes the connection between commerce and wealth: Miss Havisham’s fortune is not the product of an aristocratic birth but of a recent success in industrial capitalism. Finally, the crumbling, dilapidated stones of the house, as well as the darkness and dust that pervade it, symbolize the general decadence of the lives of its inhabitants and of the upper class as a whole. The Mists on the Marshes The setting almost always symbolizes a theme in Great Expectations and always sets a tone that is perfectly matched to the novel’s dramatic action. The misty marshes near Pip’s childhood home in Kent, one of the most evocative of the book’s settings, are used several times to symbolize danger and uncertainty.

As a child, Pip brings Magwitch a file and food in these mists; later, he is kidnapped by Orlick and nearly murdered in them. Whenever Pip goes into the mists, something dangerous is likely to happen. Significantly, Pip must go through the mists when he travels to London shortly after receiving his fortune, alerting the reader that this apparently positive development in his life may have dangerous consequences. Bentley Drummle Although he is a minor character in the novel, Bentley Drummle provides an important contrast with Pip and represents the arbitrary nature of class distinctions. In his mind, Pip has connected the ideas of moral, social, and educational advancement so that each depends on the others. The coarse and cruel Drummle, a member of the upper class, provides Pip with proof that social advancement has no inherent connection to intelligence or moral worth. Drummle is a lout who has inherited immense wealth, while Pip’s friend and brother-in-law Joe is a good man who works hard for the little he earns.

Drummle’s negative example helps Pip to see the inner worth of characters such as Magwitch and Joe, and eventually to discard his immature fantasies about wealth and class in favor of a new understanding that is both more compassionate and more realistic. 11 Dickensian Facts About 'Great Expectations' | Mental Floss 11 Dickensian Facts About 'Great Expectations' UIowa Like us on Facebook Great Expectations begins when a boy named Pip encounters an escaped convict in a graveyard. The gripping story that emerges from there includes money from a mysterious benefactor, a bewitching and cold-hearted girl, and the shut-in Miss Havisham, forever clothed in a tattered wedding gown. It’s no wonder that so many people consider Great Expectations to be one of Charles Dickens's best works. 1. Dickens planned to write a "grotesque tragicomic” novel. While Great Expectations may be one of Dickens’s darkest books, he originally wanted it to be a comic novel.

He wrote a friend , “You will not have to complain of the want of humour as in the Tale of Two Cities...I have put a child and a good-natured foolish man, in relations that seem to me very funny.” In another letter, he said, “I can see the whole of a serial revolving on it, in a most singular and comic manner.” 2. He wrote the novel during the most difficult period of his life. Dickens started Great Expectations in October 1860, not long after separating from Catherine, his wife of 22 years and the mother of his ten children. He’d moved into his own place and was pursuing a young actress named Ellen Ternan. On top of that, his son was running up gambling debts, his daughter married a man Dickens didn’t like, and his elderly mother was showing signs of dementia . All this was on his mind as he started to write. 3. Estella may have been based his mistress. Dickens became smitten with18-year-old Ellen Ternan when he hired her to perform in the play The Frozen Deep. While Ellen seems to have resisted Dickens's advances at first, she eventually became his mistress .

Many biographers think that the beautiful and unloving character of Estella may have been Dickens’s view of his early relationship with Estella. Estella—Latin for “star”—could be a partial anagram of Ellen Ternan. 4. Miss Havisham was based on a real person. In 1853, Dickens wrote an essay about growing up in London where he mentions a street person bearing a resemblance to Miss Havisham. “The White Woman is her name. She is dressed entirely in white, with a ghastly white plaiting round her head and face, inside her white bonnet...She is a conceited old creature, cold and formal in manner, and evidently went simpering mad on personal grounds alone—no doubt because a wealthy Quaker wouldn’t marry her. This is her bridal dress.” 5. Like most of his novels, Great Expectations was published in serial form. All Dickens novels were first published in serial form , meaning that the story was broken into installments and published over a period of time in a journal or newspaper. Great Expectations ran in Dickens’s journal All the Year Round from December 1860 to August 1861.

It was published in book form in October—just in time for Christmas that year. 6. Bentley Drummle was based on a publisher Dickens disliked. In the novel, Estella marries snobby, cruel Bentley Drummle instead of Pip. The name is suspiciously close to the publisher Richard Bentley, whom Dickens believed cheated him out of money. Dickens worked as the editor of Bentley's Miscellany, the publication that serialized Oliver Twist—a story which, of course, was enormously successful. Dickens and Bentley argued over money for some time. Finally, Dickens bought out his contract as well as the copyright to Oliver Twist from the publisher and got literary revenge in the form of the unflattering character. 7. Dickens carefully worked out the ages of his characters. The working notes for Great Expectations show that Dickens created a timeline for the characters’ ages. Pip, Estella, and Herbert are all 23 at the climax of the novel. Magwitch is 60, Biddy is 24, Joe is 45, and Miss Havisham is a relatively youthful 56. 8. Great Expectations is one of two Dickens novels written in the first person.

Of Dickens’s novels, only Great Expectations and David Copperfield are written entirely in the first person, with the character telling the story to the reader. (Bleak House is narrated in the first and third person.) Dickens wanted Pip’s voice to be similar to David Copperfield. He wrote, "The book will be written in the first person throughout, and during these first three weekly numbers you will find the hero to be a boy-child, like David.” 9. He had Cooling Castle in mind for the graveyard scene. Hywel Williams , Wikimedia Commons The memorable first section most likely took place at (or was inspired by) St James' Church in Cooling, Kent. There you can still see “Pip’s Graves,” the gravestones of 13 babies, which Dickens describes as “little stone lozenges each about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row.” Here are pictures of the church. 10. Great Expectations had an alternate ending. After finishing Great Expectations, Dickens went to visit the novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton. While there, he showed his friend the last chapters of Great Expectations, which hadn’t yet gone to print.

Bulwer-Lytton said that the ending was depressing and urged Dickens to change it. Dickens agreed and rewrote the ending, which was published in the novel. In it, Estella and Pip become friends and, it’s implied, eventually get married. (If that’s not confusing enough, the last line of the novel was altered several times .) The final paragraph is: “I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.” 11. Here’s the original, somber ending of Great Expectations As it was when Edward Bulwer-Lytton read it and found it too depressing: One day, two years after his return from the east, I was in England again—in London, and walking along Piccadilly with little Pip—when a servant came running after me to ask would I step back to a lady in a carriage who wished to speak to me.

It was a little pony carriage, which the lady was driving; and the lady and I looked sadly enough on one another. “I am greatly changed, I know, but I thought you would like to shake hands with Estella too, Pip. Lift up that pretty child and let me kiss it!” (She supposed the child, I think, to be my child.) I was very glad afterwards to have had the interview; for, in her face and in her voice, and in her touch, she gave me the assurance, that suffering had been stronger than Miss Havisham’s teaching, and had given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be.

Question: In which Charles Dickens novel does the character 'Bentley Drummle' appear?
Answer: 'GREAT EXPECTATIONS'